


Wrapped Around My Wrist (Choking Off My Breath)

by ifdragonscouldtalk



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Amanda Grayson Deserved Better, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bones loves Spock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Spock (Star Trek), Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Hurt Spock (Star Trek), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mentioned Amanda Grayson, Panic Attacks, Poor Spock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spock (Star Trek) Has Feelings, Spock (Star Trek) Has Issues, Spock (Star Trek) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Spock loves Bones, Vulnerable Spock, spock whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifdragonscouldtalk/pseuds/ifdragonscouldtalk
Summary: He didn’t realize the tears falling on Leonard’s dirt-stained cheeks were not the Human’s but his own, not until Leonard’s face shifted from terror to that grim determination that he had so loved that first time he saw him. “Spock. Sweetheart. You’ve got me. You’ve got me so tight, you’re ‘bout to break my wrist. You’ve got me, and neither one of us is lettin’ go. Pull me up there, sweetheart, get me away from this edge ‘fore it crumbles. Ain’t gotta reach for me no more, I’m right here.”Or: Leonard fell. Spock caught him. It was nothing like when he lost his mother, and too much like it all the same. Maybe Leonard was really the one who caught him.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Comments: 27
Kudos: 293





	Wrapped Around My Wrist (Choking Off My Breath)

_ “Leonard!”  _

Spock's voice cracked on the scream, almost louder in his ears than the cracking of the rocks below as his body was encompassed in weightlessness. He was not weightless for long, jerked in two different directions as Jim grabbed his belt and he clutched desperately to Leonard’s outstretched hand with both of his, having abandoned his tricorder and samples to the rocks below, feet braced on the cracked edge of abysmal nothingness. He was shaking, dust raining down on the Doctor, dislodged by his trembles, and Leonard was staring up at him with terror and concern, and Jim was shouting something, and the away team was scrambling around behind him, and he couldn’t move, his mother’s smile frozen on Leonard’s face. 

“Spock?” Too many voices were ringing in his head, and the landscape was wavering a cracking, sucking red around him, katras screaming into his mind as they were lost to the universe, the Arch shuddering above and around him and his hand was outstretched, grasping nothing desperately, holding onto it as if he could gather it close and shape it into something. “Spock, you have to pull me up, babe. We gotta get away from the edge.”

He did not want to move. He did not want to act as Captain. He did not want to do anything but give in to the press of tears against the back of his eyes, the pounding in his head and ears, scream out his anguish and the anguish of his people in a way these Humans staring at him could hear, in a way that would embarrass his father but his mother would have supported. 

Would have. 

He had grasped onto nothingness. There was nothing. He wished he had been swallowed with that nothing, as well. 

“Spock, baby, snap out of it!” 

Their voices were frantic, Human voices, asking, demanding reassurance, guidance, and he did not have any when he was as lost in the universe as he ever had been, the psychic screams of so many millions of kin still echoing around in his head, trapped within his shields. Those who survived looked lost, looked to him as if he could provide, as if he was accepted, and he had never felt so far apart from them, so far apart from anyone. How could he continue like this, when his mother, the only being in the galaxy who had accepted him, had been killed by a man who proclaimed he was the reason for this genocide? 

“Commander, you need to move! I can’t hold both of you long!” 

And that Cadet, that Cadet who had simply watched him crumble and said nothing, who had cheated death but could not find a way to cheat this one, was his Commander, and all he could do was  _ talk. _ As if he  _ knew _ what was happening, as if he  _ understood.  _ As if Spock had not just failed to save his mother, who was his entire world, and was apparently the cause of its destruction. As if once they led these Vulcans who didn’t matter, who had never liked him, to Sickbay and continued towards the Earth to defend it, they would not fail once more, the ground still crumbling ever quicker towards Spock’s trembling, unmoving feet. 

The Cadet didn’t understand. He couldn’t. No one could. 

But that man, that man who had yelled at him over the comms but worked just as efficiently as any doctor Spock had ever seen, perhaps the most skilled doctor he had ever had the pleasure to exchange blows with, the man who had snuck the Cadet on board, had looked at him and said nothing. No apology, no pleasantry, nothing but steely determination and grim composure in his eyes, nothing but anger for the blood staining his body liberally. 

Spock thought he looked beautiful, and he breathed in the dust around him, red, too red, and took in the Doctor’s filthy face, and thought maybe, maybe, he could create a new world within the tragedy. Maybe, he would be able to heal from this. 

“Best get to work, Captain.” 

And there was nothing he could do as that beautiful man turned away except follow the order and return to the Bridge, and try to salvage something from everything he had lost. Endangered species. Endangered. But one Human out of millions still surviving was more important. 

He didn’t realize the tears falling on Leonard’s dirt-stained cheeks were not the Human’s but his own, not until Leonard’s face shifted from terror to that grim determination that he had so loved that first time he saw him. “Spock. Sweetheart. You’ve got me. You’ve got me so tight, you’re ‘bout to break my wrist. You’ve got me, and neither one of us is lettin’ go. Pull me up there, sweetheart, get me away from this edge ‘fore it crumbles. Ain’t gotta reach for me no more, I’m right here.” 

Jim grunted behind him, and Spock felt his Captain trembling almost as violently as he was. “Bones,  _ shit _ -” 

“I know, Jim, give him a second. C’mon, Spock, you caught me. You caught me, you didn’t let me fall. Pavel ain’t gonna beam us up this time, you gotta do the work yourself, sweetheart.”

He could feel Leonard’s panic and sweat-slick on his skin, panic he had seen in his mother’s eyes but not felt, had not reached fast enough, and everything seemed to be trembling and pulsing strangely around him, his breath coming out awkwardly, his vision marred by tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. 

“Spock, for fuck’s sake!” Jim sounded panicked, strained, scared, and Spock realized he was going to pull all three of them over the edge if he didn’t get a grip, but those screams were still ringing in his ears, the sound of his name from Nero’s lips, his mother’s wide eyes and her scarf fluttering in the hot wind of destruction. He was panting in the air here, and it was much cooler on this planet, the rocks a strange shade of purple, but it still felt too hot and too red to his senses. All he could see were the rocks in Leonard’s hair, and the blood trickling from his cheek where a shard must’ve hit him in the quake and the crumbling. 

“Up, Spock. Best get to work.” 

It was a command, mindless and easy to follow, and just like that day he was helpless to do anything but obey and shudder with the destruction of the one Human out of millions still surviving that was more important, trying to salvage something from the nothing he had lost. 

His feet stumbled back of their own accord as he forced his upper body to unfold from hanging over the edge, and he felt more than heard Jim grunt again next to his ear as he barreled backwards into his chest with a distinct lack of grace, one hand reaching further down to grab the back of Leonard’s collar, steadying him, preventing him from scraping against the sharp edge as he pulled him up from falling and into his arms. The three of them, like some six-legged creature, tumbled back from the newly affixed ravine, four hands leading his shaking body blindly, blind because he couldn’t see, couldn’t feel for breathing, for shaking apart in Leonard’s arms, arms which still existed, which were bruised with the grip he had taken them in. 

“Away! Get back, dammit!” he heard Leonard barking, vaguely, but he was undergoing the curiously new and vaguely frightening sensation of his brain completely shutting down. He didn’t know who Leonard was talking to, didn’t know why Jim was muttering in his ear and guiding him to the dusty purple ground and into recovery position, didn’t know when his vision had tunneled black and green and wavering. Leonard’s knuckles were on his sternum, pressing, rubbing, and it hurt, hurt like the tears still cutting tracks down his cheeks, dripping over the bridge of his nose, both forcing him to breathe shuddering breaths in the oxygen-rich air of this planet. 

“I didn’t know,” Jim was murmuring somewhere above and behind him, but all he could see was Leonard’s stomach and knees where he was crouched in front of him, covered in purple dirt. 

“Neither did I,” his Doctor replied grimly, and Spock sometimes had to still himself and be blessed by the fact that Leonard was  _ his _ Doctor. “Not this bad. Some nightmares, and insecurities. But not this.”

“I can’t imagine, Bones,” and Jim’s voice was even softer, and Spock suddenly felt sobs bubbling up within him and let them escape, reaching out pathetically to reel Leonard in and bury his face in the dust-covered stomach, overcome with anguish and terror and  _ relief. _

“I’m here, baby,” Leonard was whispering into his hair, clutching him just as tightly. “I’m here and you’ve got me. You caught me. I didn’t fall, and I ain’t gonna, not with you here. You got me, Spock, you got me. I love you, sweetheart, it’s okay. Let it out.” 

“I couldn’t catch you,” he choked out through his sobs, everything muddled in his mind, and he wanted to slip into sleep and wake up in his quarters at the Academy, ready to oversee the third Kobayashi Maru test of Cadet Kirk and watch him fail once more, wanted to watch that doctor who never should’ve been operating a Bridge panel captivate him with his calmness and his ease. 

“You did catch me, baby. And I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry that I fell. I’m sorry that I reminded you of her. But I’m here, sweetheart, and I’m breathin’.” He couldn’t catch his breath, huffing damply in the warm space of Leonard’s stomach, and he knew, logically, that Leonard had not fallen, and that his mother had. But everything was so confusing. Everything was wrong. He didn’t understand what was happening, and he was  _ frightened. _ “Spock...  _ k’diwa, _ you’re really frightenin’ us here. Please... babe, you gotta come back to me, or I’ll have to sedate you.” 

“It’s that bad?” Jim, whispering again, and Spock closed his eyes to feel the vibration of Leonard’s voice as he responded. 

“I’ve never seen an episode this bad, Jim, he can’t tell what’s reality at all, which isn’t unusual, but he’s not comin’ back either. And he might not, not without help. Hell, they can last twenty minutes or more, and with that Vulcan brain of his... This is bad, Jim, real bad. He must’ve been hiding this from us. Maybe even from himself.”

“What, he didn’t realize he had PTSD?”

“All of us were screened, you remember. I bet he didn’t realize. Not if he's never had a flashback like this before. It’s not... logical.” 

“Doesn’t help that you’re the only Human more important to him than...”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t.”

“I love you,” he managed to breathe into that small, dark space he had enveloped himself in as Jim and Leonard talked, as Leonard rocked him gently, a soothing motion. “I love you. I love you, I never say that. I never said it. She didn’t know. You- you didn’t know, she... I never said it. I never say it. I love you. P-Please.” He didn’t know what he was begging for, now, didn’t know why a fresh wave of tears was staining Leonard’s shirt. He was exhausted. He wanted to sleep, and wake up in Leonard’s arms alright again. 

“You don’t have to say it. I know that you love me, and your momma knew too. But I love you so much, with all my heart, Spock. Jim, hand me that. I love you more than I could ever express, and I know that you love me without the words,  _ k’diwa. _ We ain’t really the talkin’ type, anyway. Here, sweetheart, let’s sleep, huh? Well make it better when we wake, okay.”

“Don’t want you to fall,” he muttered, hearing more than feeling the hiss of the hypospray at his neck. 

“I ain’t gonna. I’m gonna hold you right here, right until you wake up, so don’t you dream of me fallin’ now.” 

Spock wanted to say that he didn’t dream, but Leonard would know that was a lie, and he was already asleep regardless. 

* * *

The air was cool and the lights were dim. He could tell that much as he swam to consciousness, before he even opened his eyes. 

It did not explain why his body felt weak, why it seemed to want to shake under him despite his stationary position in a bed. 

He blinked in the dim lights, taking in the familiar ceiling of Sickbay, and he had never had such conflicting emotions warring so strongly within him before. Panic that he couldn’t immediately identify the source of still reigned in his chest, his lungs constricted and his throat sore. His eyes felt dry. He blinked again, trying to shake off the exhaustion that plagued him, trying to forget the memory of Leonard’s blood on the rocks. 

Oh stars.

Leonard had fallen. 

He almost wanted to scream in anguish, and hysteria enveloped him in a warm bubble before he realized he could feel the thrumming of that vibrant Human mind pressed against his, so familiar and warm, dimmed with something but  _ alive. _ He tilted his head, taking in the curtains drawn around his bed with a tired gaze, and the hand clutching his, attached to his snoring beloved where he slumped in the chair next to his biobed. He wasn’t in scrubs -- it seemed he had changed into civvies and dragged their thick, weighted blanket from their room to wrap around himself during his vigil, and Spock felt something more calm and better try and beat back the terror that still rang in his head. 

“Leonard,” he croaked, because he was selfish and had never felt so weak, because he needed to know for sure that when those eyes opened they wouldn’t be staring back at him blankly from an inky blackness and a blanket of red. Leonard’s snores halted sharply and he jerked, wearing that soft frown that always prefaced his consciousness before his eyes blinked open, slow, unhurried, and a knot loosened within Spock. Leonard’s lack of overt concern or anger meant that he would be alright, was alright. A slow grin spread across the Doctor’s face, sweet and loving and only for Spock to see, his favorite kind. 

“Hey there, sweetheart. Slept for quite awhile, babe, had us worried.”

“My apologies.” 

“Don’t. You needed it, after that.” The panic surged back to the forefront as he recalled ‘that’ with unerring clarity, and Leonard was up and spreading the weighted blanket across him, was pressing up against him in a bed that had not been designed to hold two children, much less two grown men. “None of that now, baby, it’s alright. I’m safe, you caught me. I’m right here, and I’m gonna let you hold me until it permates that big huge brain of yours that you really did catch me, and that I’m alive, and that we’re all safe.” 

“What happened to me?”

He knew. He knew, logically, what had happened. But he wasn’t feeling very logical right now, and there was no one he trusted more than his Doctor. Leonard sighed, one hand clutching his and the other in his hair, smoothing down the strands. 

“Pretty bad flashback, babe. I can’t tell you what you were seein’, but for the most part it wasn’t me.” 

“I put you and Jim in danger. I put everyone in danger.” His voice came out quieter than he expected, and he buried it in the warm space of Leonard’s neck, speaking to the soft pulse of his heart. 

“I know it must’ve seemed like forever for you, but we weren’t hangin’ there more than a minute or two before you pulled me up. And in another circumstance, maybe that minute woulda been our undoing. But Spock, you’ve never had a flashback before, not that I’ve seen or not that you’ve told me, and that was a very specific and statistically unlikely situation. There’s no way any of us coulda predicted it.” Leonard was warm in the cool air, and the blanket was heavy and oppressive in a way the standard gravity of the ship never seemed to be, reminding him of home, the home he had so devastatingly lost. “No one blames you, and we’re all fine, and we’re all alive. And now, you’re gonna get help, and we’re gonna get you all straight again. Jim and I are in agreement, there’s no reason for you to be taken off away missions if you don’t want to. Ain’t no way something like that’s happenin’ again, and we know what to watch for, now.” 

It was quiet, then, and Spock listened to the pulsing of Leonard’s heart and the beating of the engines and the hum of equipment around them and felt himself settle, felt exhaustion try to overcome him once more. “For now,” Leonard finally continued, and his voice was much softer, “you need rest, and meditation, and then we’ll get you all squared away with a therapist, and I’m gonna work on an anti-anxiety that doesn’t make you sick.” Those all sounded like good things, and Spock hummed lightly against his beloved’s throat. 

“When I lost her, I realized I never told her I loved her,” he whispered back, because it had been on his mind. “No one ever knew, there was no proof, that I ever loved my mother. But I did. I loved her so deeply, that my world was gone, and all I could think of was her.”

“She knew, Spock. Mothers always know.”

“Yes. I imagine she did. But no one else did.” He looked up now, eyes dry with exhaustion, breathing against Leonard’s lips and thinking how beautiful he was. “We do not hid our relationship, Leonard, but we do not publicize it either. I am content with that, as I imagine you are. We are both private people. But I realized... I do not tell you I love you enough. If you and Jim were gone, there would be no one who knew that I loved you, and I do.”

“Oh, Spock,  _ k’diwa, _ you ain’t losin’ us any time soon.”

“One hopes. But either way... would you do the honor of marrying me, Leonard? We do not have to bond, I know the idea of a meld still brings you discomfort, but I wish... I wish for our love to be tangible to others, as well. I wish to prove that I love you.”

“You ain’t gotta prove anything.” Leonard’s eyes were distinctly watery, and he was grinning hugely. “But I ain’t gonna say no to you. I love you too, Spock.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out my tumblr (ifdragonscouldtalk.tumblr.com) for information on how to support me and on updates! Feel free to talk to me on there! 
> 
> The ending to this is kind of lackluster, I know. I left it a bit open ended so if I ever wanted to return I could. If you have suggestions for a better ending, let me know. I just love Spones so much!   
> I hope you guys enjoyed it anyway! I would really appreciate any feedback to a reasonable degree and thoughts! If you'd like me to continue, let me know in the comments down below!


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